Group 4 - Economic and Social Change; Gentry, Commoners, Soldiers, and Mean People (735-738)

Privileged Classes

• Scholar-bureaucrats & gentry had highest position in society after emperor
  • Scholars-bureaucrats were slightly above gentry because of their official position
• Gentry owned land and small shops.
  • Didn't have to do physical labor.
  • There main income was from government services.
  • Lived in cities.
  • many were entrepreneurs
• Acted as mediators between government & people
• Had special treatment and clothing
• scholar-bureaucrats & gentry wore black gowns with blue trim
• 3 classes below gentry: peasants, artisans/workers, & merchants

Working Classes

• Peasants biggest & most honorable of classes, because they created food for the population
  • They were day laborers, and small petty landlords.
• Artisians and workers had higher income than peasants.
  • They came from the gentry and merchant families.

Merchants

• Thought of as "social parasites;" little legal protection
  • They were at the bottom of the Confucian social hierarchy because of shoddy trading
  • They could work their way up to gentry status through their generations. (Father to Son)
  • fathers could send their sons to school for an education so their son would be moved into the gentry class
• Merchants were one of the most important roles for China economically.

Lower Classes

• Included military forces & "mean people", they were beyond the socail hierarchy.
  • "Mean people:" slaves, indentured servants, entertainers, prostitutes, & others.
  • ??(beggers of Jiangsu and boat people of Guangdong)??
• Military forces were viewed as "wretched but nessisary evil."
  • the military was a necessity for protection of the civilization but people who were willing to kill others were viewed as "mean"